


Dysmorphia

by Chokopoppo



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, F/F, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29613771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: “My name is Tex,” she tells them. They don’t listen. They know better. Because everybody knows what’s good for her better than she does.
Relationships: Agent Connecticut/Agent Texas | Allison
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Dysmorphia

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through season 10.
> 
> I might do more with this concept at some point--you know how when you're planning a fic, you usually have one scene that you want to do, and everything else is an excuse to get there? I didn't get there on this one, it just didn't quite fit. So who knows!
> 
> Anyway I guess the point is, TF fandom has a good thing going with protoforms and I, personally, believe we should steal it for ourselves like we're looting a corpse.

She wakes up staring straight up at the florescent light. Hospital light fixture. Cold room. Hospitals are always so cold, the world keeps swimming back and forth in front of her—it makes her feel like gagging—

“Allison,” a man says, out of her sightline. “Allison, you’re awake. We were so worried, the crash was horrible—“

“Where am I?” she croaks (her voice is hoarse, ragged, is that how she sounds? She doesn’t remember sounding like that, that’s not her voice, she would remember if that was her voice), “what’s going on?”

“There was a crash, you were on an airship. It’s alright now, you weren’t injured too badly—“

“No, that’s not right,” she says, panic rising in her chest, “no, that didn’t happen to me, where am I—“

There’s a sharp intake of breath from the same voice as she struggles, tries to move her body. Her arms are so heavy, her vision is blurring, her head feels like it’s going to explode, something is wrong with her,

“What’s happening?” He says, panic in his voice now, too, which only scares her more. “Councilor, somebody, goddamn it, tell me what’s going on!”

“It’s the protoform, sir, it’s not stable,” another man’s voice says, “without a mold to fill, it’s failing to take shape. It shouldn’t be happening with her, I don’t know why it—“

“Get a mold! Somebody grab a goddamn helmet! Get something!”

Her vision blurs and she can see all of the room at once, everything beside her and above her and below her, stretching out to infinity, like a screen pulled like taffy over her face, like her eyes are being dragged apart. She opens her mouth, what might be her mouth, and tries to ask for help, but all that comes out of her mouth is noise.

She wakes up staring straight up at the florescent light. Hospital light fixture, a helpful annotation on her HUD informs her. There’s a digital clock in the bottom left corner informing her that it’s 4:32 AM on 3/12/00 (Friday). The reported temperature outside is 78F/25C, but the temperature reading from her armor is 68F/20C. Optimal temperature for a lab environment.

“Allison,” a man says, and she turns her head (her brain throbs with the movement but she was designed to withstand pain) to look at him. An annotation on her HUD informs her that he is Dir. Leonard Church, 5’9”, 192lbs, -4.0 in both eyes, vulnerable to fatality via a blow to the neck/head/spinal area, officer with the UNSC, ally. “Allison, you’re awake. We were so worried. The crash was horrible, we kept searching the wreckage and we kept finding bodies.”

“Leonard?” She asks hoarsely (that can’t be her voice it doesn’t feel like her voice she would remember if that was her voice), and it must be what she was supposed to say, because he smiles.

“Everyone said you were dead,” he says, and reaches forward to take one of her hands in both of his (she doesn’t want it she doesn’t know him she’s too weak to pull away conserve your strength until the time to strike is right), squeezing it tight. “But I never gave up hope. I could never let you go, Allison. Even on the brink—we did everything for you.”

She looks at the place where he holds her hand.

“Everything is alright now,” he says, as if to himself, “you’re so strong, Allison. You’re a fighter.”

She doesn’t feel strong. Every part of her body hurts, throbbing, aching pain. She’s too weak to lift her arms; if it wasn’t for the assistance of the armor, she probably wouldn’t have been able to turn her head.

And her name isn’t Allison. They’ve made some mistake—they must have rescued the wrong person, pulled the wrong body. Her name is—is—she doesn’t know what her name is, but it isn’t that.

“I’m—tired,” she says, with the voice that doesn’t belong to her, “I’m really… really tired.”

“You’re in recovery,” another man says soothingly, “just rest for now, Allison. We’ll bring you up to speed with Project Freelancer when you’re recovered.”

“You’ll have your old codename back,” Leonard Church reassures her, “I insisted on it being kept in reserve. No one thought I could do it. They doubted you, but I never did.”

Her chest is so heavy, like she’s being crushed under some enormous weight. He won’t let go of her hand. “I’m just really tired,” she says, and then, mercifully, sleeps.

Project freelancer is explained to her in great detail. Her unit, her name. There was a crash. She was supposed to be leading her unit on the planet Sidewinder against some rebel force, but, well. Mechanical troubles. It wasn’t her fault, Leonard Church keeps telling her, until she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was.

He shows her the facility. The training area, the programs they run, how to interact with F.I.L.S.S. How to access the database if she has any questions. Any at all. Nothing is off limits to her. She can ask any question she likes.

“What’s with the leaderboards?” Is her first one.

Leonard Church laughs at that. “Don’t you worry about the leaderboards,” he says, “they’re beneath you. Not for you to worry about.”

“Kind of hard not to notice them when they’re four stories tall and backlit to hell,” she retorts. “Seriously, why are they here? Wouldn’t a map or an itinerary be more useful? At least more cost efficient.”

“It’s important for me to have a definitive ranking of my agents,” he says. “They all have their specialties, of course, but I don’t want to use the wrong agent for the wrong job. I need to know who’s good, who’s better, and who’s slipping.”

“Then why is it here?” She says. “This is their space. If it really _was_ for you, it would be in your office.”

He smiles at her, like she’s a novelty or an amusement. “Sharp as ever,” he says. “A healthy sense of competition never hurt a military organization any. My agents are… the best in the business, present company excluded. If they get too comfortable being _the best,_ they might cease to be _the best._ The leaderboard simply encourages them to… stay focused. Not slip up. Continue to perform at the highest level.”

She stares up at the names. “Carolina,” she says. “York. They must be pretty good.”

He snorts and begins walking again, back turned to her. “They are _beneath_ you, Allison,” he repeats, “I made them to assist you, not to compete with you. Don’t trouble yourself with learning their names.”

The director and the councilor call her Allison, but everyone else calls her Agent Texas. Tex. She likes Tex. It fits like a hand in a glove.

She’s been instructed to sleep in her helmet. In her armor. Not to take it off for any reason. It’s a precaution, the councilor tells her, which makes her feel like the woman with a green ribbon around her neck. Just a precaution. Just for now. Don’t worry, soon it’ll be safe, and we are so looking forward to it, Allison, it’s just a little longer, just hang in there. We know it’s uncomfortable, just hang in there.

“My name is Tex,” she tells them. They don’t listen. They know better. Because everybody knows what’s good for her better than she does.

They debut her like some kind of anticipated midnight release, like a showy new toy. They put her up against three of their best, and she’s got to admit that the director is right about one thing: they _are_ beneath her.

Still, she likes some of them. York fights with determination, doesn’t start making stupid mistakes even after the sixth, seventh, eighth time she cleans his clock in front of all his friends. He’s clear-headed, good-humored, funny—hell, he’d be showing some really excellent leadership skills if his team paid him any mind.

She’s sorry about his eye. She visits his bed in the medical wing to tell him so, and he smiles and cracks a joke about how it’s alright because he’s All Right. Get it? Left eye? All Right?

“You _are_ all right,” Tex says, and smiles.

Carolina doesn’t give her a comparable welcome; she’s cold, bitter, speaks curtly like she’s barely holding back a bite. She acts like it’s _personal,_ like Tex has _done_ something to her. Jesus Christ. All she did was show up and do what she’s supposed to—who cares if Carolina isn’t used to being in second place? Tex didn’t ask to be on the stupid fucking leaderboard. That’s the directors prerogative, not hers. This is just some game she’s not even playing.

The rest of the freelancers are an irritation at best. Maine and Wyoming don’t interest her, and Washington is a sniveling baby desperately trying to keep up with his more accomplished peers. And then there’s South, the brat, the bully, the worst kind of narcissist. Nothing is ever her fault, no one is ever on her side, everyone is always talking about her behind her back, et cetera et fucking cetera. She’s a complainer, a liability, a bitch. Tex doesn’t bother with her except to put her in her place.

Her brother’s okay, but not worth going out of the way for. Not until he wises up and stops defending his twin, anyway, which Tex puts past him out of hand. 

The leaderboard’s useful for one thing, anyway, which is reminding her which agents matter. She doesn’t go on missions with any of the agents off the Top Ten, so hypothetically, she only ever needs to remember ten names. Her HUD identifies agents at a glance; if it’s not on the leaderboard, she doesn’t even have to talk to them. And most of the Top Ten know better than to talk to her. She certainly doesn’t invite conversation.

“What’s protoform?” She asks the councilor, the fourth time she’s called into the lab to have her vitals checked in as many weeks. He blinks at her.

“Where did you hear that word?”

 _From you._ “Does it matter?” She says. “It has to do with my injuries. I deserve to know.”

He sighs. “Yes, I suppose you do,” he says. “It’s… well, a protoform is—“

“It’s experimental tech,” the director interrupts, from his position in the corner of the room. He’s always here for Tex’s check-ups, watching too closely. He’s always watching her too closely. “A gift from one of our… intergalactic allies. It helps the body repair damage, fills in holes in muscles, skin, organs. Helps the body continue to function while in intensive care.”

“It’s all over my head, isn’t it?” Tex guesses. The director and councilor share a furtive look, which means she’s right, as per usual. “That’s why I can’t take off my helmet. You’re afraid my fucking head will melt off.”

Another uncomfortable look. “You’ll be able to take it off soon, Allison,” the councilor says soothingly, “I promise. I know it’s uncomfortable, but it’s only temporary.”

Green ribbon.

“How the hell do you know?” She snaps. “It’s been months and you’ve never even checked it. You just take my fucking blood pressure and look at each other and tell me ‘just a little longer’. If it’s forever, just fucking tell me. Tell me I can never take it off again, I don’t give a shit! I’m just tired of getting jerked around by my dick just because you two don’t know anything about this fucking alien material that you slathered all over my goddamn face.”

The director scowls. “That’s enough, Allison—“

“My name is Tex.”

“No, it is _not,”_ he snarls, “your name is Allison Church! You finished basic training with perfect scores, went on to become a lieutenant colonel in only your third year of service, led a team of soldiers to planet Sidewinder where your ship crashed and from whence my division recovered you. Your birthday is September seventh! You were married on July thirteenth!”

“Fuck this,” Tex says, and pulls her helmet off.

The councilor inhales sharply, stiffening his shoulders, but it’s the director who Tex watches as the color drains from his face. All at once, he tears his gaze away, jerking his head as though slapped by an invisible hand. The room goes very quiet.

Her head doesn’t roll off her shoulders onto the floor, and she doesn’t feel anything dripping or oozing. Tentatively, she touches her face, feels the kevlar of her glove on responsive skin. She doesn’t feel any pain, any gaping wounds, any blood.

“Look,” she says, “all fixed. Was that so hard?”

“No,” he grits out, “that’s not right. God _damn_ it, Allison, I told you to _wait—“_

“Director,” the councilor interrupts, “please, let’s—talk outside, for a moment.” He glances at her, visibly repulsed, before grabbing the director by the arm and pulling him away. As they pass, the director covers his eyes.

There’s no mirror in the room. Tex tries to use the visor of her helmet as a reflective surface, but it’s not clear enough or flat enough to see anything but the most basic shapes, and she never kept it particularly shiny anyway. Her hands are similarly unhelpful—with her gloves on, she can’t feel anything wrong with the texture of her skin, and no matter how hard she feels for something, anything, she can’t find the deformity. Mouth, eyes, nose, ears, they’re all in the right place. Maybe she’s just fucking ugly.

Under her fingers, she feels something move and writhe, like a maggot under the skin. Like a host of maggots under the skin. She puts her helmet back on.

“We believe you have moved into the psychosomatic period of recovery,” the councilor tells her when he returns, alone, to her room. He smiles weakly. “Congratulations.”

“What’s wrong with me?” She asks.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Allison.”

“Yeah? ‘Cause you looked like you wanted to fucking yartz.” She crosses her arms. She’d prefer frowning, but that doesn’t have any effect, and it’s important that he knows she’s pissed. “What, am I just _that_ fucking ugly?”

The councilor looks pained. This is probably not the part of the job he signed up for. “The protoform is… having an unusual effect,” he says after a moment, picking his way through words like a minefield. “It’s trying to… create… a face.”

“I thought it was repairing my face.”

He squirms. “Um, yes,” he says. “But it’s not—that is, we don’t know why it’s having the effect it’s having. It is, as the director said, an experimental treatment.” He pauses, clicking his jaw. “We were simply… startled. We didn’t expect to see… well. We expected you to look like… you.”

Tex absorbs this. “So I look like an alien,” she says.

“Um, no,” the councilor says. “You just look… different. The director and I think it best if you… continue your twenty-four hour wear for a few weeks longer, until you have a… a clearer mental picture of yourself.”

She stares.

“We believe that… taking the time to focus on your physical appearance and practice mindfulness about it will… help the protoform into the right shape,” he continues. “The director has agreed to help as much as he can during this transition period. He’s waiting for you outside.”

The director has calmed down noticeably by the time Tex walks out. He walks her back to her room, ignoring the privates who slow to a jog to give picture-perfect salutes to the two of them, apparently lost in thought. He has something in his hands. Cheap cardstock.

“I apologize for my behavior today,” he says, when they’re standing at the door to her private quarters. “My reaction must have upset you.”

“Yeah, well.” She fumbles for her doorkey, focusing on her belt so she doesn’t have to look at his face. “Sorry I’m broken. You must have been very hopeful.”

“You are not broken, Agent Texas,” he says. “You are in recovery. Here.” He hands her the cards. Cards? No, photos.

She stares down at them, thin and delicate in her armored hands. A woman in uniform standing at attention. The same woman in the cockpit of a pelican. Her again in civvies, at a restaurant, a plate in front of her.

“This is you,” he tells her. “This is what you look like, not—not what’s under your helmet. Focus on this. Try to remember this.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, because she doesn’t. She feels so tired.

“It will come,” he says. “Don’t rush yourself to any revelations. You have all the time in the world.” He turns to go—stops—looks back. “And do yourself a favor,” he adds, “I know you must be curious, but… don’t go looking for a mirror. Trust me.”

Tex nods, and unlocks her door, and goes inside. She lies down on her bed and, despite her exhaustion, cannot sleep. 

It’s really only a matter of time before someone breaks through. Tex was expecting it to come from Carolina, who’s tough and hard and obsessed, following her around, bringing competition into jobs where it doesn’t need to be. Talking about her. Watching her with steely, fascinated eyes.

It would make sense, if it was Carolina. She’s focused, beautiful, strong—not strong the way Tex is strong, but strong compared to anyone else. She might be able to keep up. It would make sense.

But it isn’t her.

“I’m so sorry, I’m in your way,” Agent Connecticut says. “You’re—you’re Agent Texas, right? Wow. Um. Sorry. I don’t mean to stare.”

“You can stare if you want,” Tex tells her. “I don’t care.”

They’re the only two in the locker room. Tex hates the locker room, doesn’t typically dignify it with her presence, but someone went through her desk this afternoon while she was on a mission. They didn’t take anything, whoever they were, but they tripped several of her hairline traps, and nothing appeared on the camera footage when she had it played back. Security probably thinks she’s fucking delusional. She just thinks it’s an inside job.

It’s not like she has anything worth taking, but she values her privacy. Everyone knows she doesn’t use the locker room. She figured she could store some of her personals here until she thinks of a more permanent solution.

“We haven’t met,” Connecticut says. “I mean, I know that’s on purpose. ‘Cause I’m not, you know, top ten or anything. I’m CT.”

“I know,” Tex says.

“What? I mean, what?” CT says. “I mean—“

“My heads-up display has all personnel identified,” Tex says, by way of an answer. “We haven’t been introduced. In case you were going to stand there agonizing over that all night.”

She turns back to her locker. She’s not even really doing anything—she could just close the door, clap the lock on, and walk out without a word. Go get something to eat. She’s done here.

CT is staring intently at her. Her helmet is off; she’s got short hair, a soft face. She looks young. Real young. Tex doesn’t ever remember being that young.

“What,” Tex says after a moment. It’s supposed to sound accusing. Scary. Everyone’s scared of her around here, they should be scared of her, they’re beneath her. They were made to assist her, not compete with her.

CT smiles, covers her mouth with a hand. “Sorry,” she says. “I kind of thought you would be taller.”

She’s cute.

“Why, ‘cause everything’s bigger in Texas?” Tex says. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not disappointed,” CT says. “I guess I didn’t realize you were actually… real.”

“Ha,” Tex says, and closes the locker door. “Yeah, I’m real.”

“I guess so,” CT says. She’s not going through her locker. She’s just standing there, looking at Tex like she has all the time in the world. “You eat? I’ve never seen you eat.”

“Not with other people,” Tex says, “but yeah, I’ve been known to eat from time to time.”

“Heresay.”

“Look who’s talking,” Tex says. “For your information, I’ve never seen _you_ eat, either. Who’s to say you eat?”

“Mess hall’s open,” CT says. “Unless you’re actually a robot with no mouth who doesn’t eat. In which case, feel free to back out for some other, made-up reason. I promise not to reveal your secret.”

Tex looks away. “I can’t use the mess hall,” she admits. “I’m, uh. I’m a robot with no mouth who can’t eat.” 

“Oh,” CT says. She doesn’t laugh. Tex wishes she would. “Well. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”

What? Oh. Shit.

“I didn’t mean,” Tex starts, and then stops. “I mean—you’re…”

“It’s okay,” CT says, after Tex flounders for a few seconds too long. “Seriously. It’s cool. It was a shot in the dark anyway.” And she smiles, adjusting her helmet under her arm. “You’re nicer than everybody says you are,” she adds. “If you ever change your mind or… if you’re just bored… well. Your HUD probably knows which room is mine.”

Before Tex can figure out what she thinks about that, CT is making her way out of the locker room, pulling her helmet on over her short crop of hair. Tex watches her go.

She does go to CT’s room a few days later. It’s not to eat dinner. Tex was kind of telling the truth about that; she gets a caloric drip twice a day at the lab. An unfortunate necessity, the director tells her, until the green ribbon can come off. It’s amazing what can be given to you through an IV these days.

CT takes her kevlar gloves off for her, and Tex uses her bare hands to fuck her until she’s screaming. After, when CT is smoking, Tex touches the vast expanse of her bare skin, reveling in the softness of it. She hasn’t felt anything on her skin but armor in a long time.

“You want some?” CT asks, gesturing towards Tex with her pen. They’re not allowed to have real cigarettes on the Mother of Invention, on account of the whole ‘fire makes everyone die in space’ thing. Tex shakes her head.

“I haven’t smoked since Basic,” she says. The director has told her this, which means it’s true, or at least as close to true as she’s going to get. “Can I stay anyway?”

“Always,” CT says, like it’s easy, like it’s nothing.

Tex looks down at her, brushes the knuckles of her fingers over the pale skin of her stomach. “I think you’re my only friend, CT,” she says. CT smiles.

“You can call me Connie.”

“Okay,” says Tex. “You can call me Allison.”

She doesn’t know why she says it. It isn’t her name, it doesn’t fit her. But it feels right to give it away, like she’s telling a secret. Sharing a secret.

She lies to everyone else. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t lie to Connie. Maybe there has to be someone.

Connie’s hand runs up her arm, over her pauldron, and settles at the base of her helmet. Tex stiffens.

“Allison,” she says, “can I—“

Tex turns her head away. “Please don’t,” she says. “I’m not what you think. I don’t want you to be… disgusted.”

“That won’t happen,” Connie says, “I couldn’t be, not by _you.”_

“The councilor was,” she can’t help but mention. “I took it off for a checkup once and he looked like I slapped him. It was actually kind of funny.” It wasn’t. 

“What happened?” she asks. “To you, I mean. Were you… hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Tex says. “I was in a… crash, I guess. It must have… damaged something. Some deformity. I don’t know.”

Connie stares at her. Slowly, she sits up, pen forgotten. “You don’t know?” She asks. Her hands are all over Tex, over her armor. Tex wishes she could feel it when Connie touches her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t know what I look like,” she says. “I don’t… remember what I looked like before the crash. I don’t really remember anything. I remember training and drills, but not faces.”

Connie runs a hand over the side of her helmet thoughtfully. “Are you scared to look?”

“I’m not supposed to,” she says, “and I… yeah. I don’t want to. I guess I am.”

“I could look for you,” Connie says, hesitantly. “I could tell you what’s wrong. What I see.”

A wave of frustration washes over her. Tex isn’t some damsel who needs to be protected from herself, she’s the top of a cast of elites, untouchable, unbreakable. She pulls away from Connie’s hands, swings her legs off the side of the bed.

For a moment, she thinks about standing up and walking out that door, making it very clear how much she doesn’t need to be coddled. But when she glances back at Connie, now curled up slightly but still very naked, gazing at her with wide, sad eyes, she can’t seem to make her legs move.

“You want to see it?” Tex says. “Fine. Take a good look.”

She unties the green ribbon and lets her head fall to the floor. The hard metal makes a clank when it makes contact—long hair falls around her field of vision, obscuring her from view. She doesn’t remember long hair when she showed her face to the councilor. Maybe it had been tied up then, somehow.

She pulls it back over her ear and turns, slightly, reveals herself to Connie, waits to see her recoil. The pain will be satisfying, she thinks. It is not so wonderful to be found repulsive, but at the very least, she will have won.

Connie does not recoil. She blinks, once or twice, when Tex glares at her, and her eyes move over her, absorbing her, taking something freely given. She frowns.

“I don’t—understand,” she says eventually. “You look… fine.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t see anything,” she says. “There’s no deformity, Allison. You look normal.”

Tex looks away, staring hard at the far wall.

“For what it’s worth, which, I guess isn’t much,” Connie adds, “I think you look very beautiful.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Connie.”

“There’s a mirror in my bathroom,” Connie says. “You can go look if you don’t believe me. I really think you should. I think it would help.”

“The director says—“

“Fuck what the director says,” Connie says, a little more vociferously than Tex approves of, “it’s your face, it’s your body. You deserve to know.”

Tex looks down at her helmet. Reaches down to pick it up off the floor. “You know,” she says thoughtfully, “I hate it when people call me Allison.”

Connie smiles. “I hate it when people call me Connie,” she says.

Tex sits in the bathroom across from Connie’s mirror, helmet still clutched in her hands, and looks. A woman who is not the woman from the photographs looks back.

She is, by all accounts, an attractive woman. Long hair, straight and black. Thick eyebrows, dark and defined. But she’s some other person, not the person who is supposed to be there when Tex looks for her.

She closes her eyes and thinks hard about the woman in the pelican, smiling in her uniform and cap, blonde hair, tanning skin, and when she opens them, the woman in the mirror is different. Almost the right person, with the right hair, the right eyes. There’s something wrong with her mouth. She smiles at Tex, who does not smile back, and when she shows her teeth, they are covered in blood.

Tex touches her own mouth, and when she pulls her hand away, there’s blood on the tips of her fingers. As she watches, it dissolves into her skin until the last trace is gone. She flexes her hand experimentally.

Practice mindfulness. That’s what she’s supposed to do. She stares at the woman in the mirror, tries to superimpose the freckles that are supposed to be there and the right color of the eyebrows over her. The woman scowls, then

warps

All over her face that rippling appears, something burrowing through her skin like a colony of maggots and she grabs at her face, watches it bend and thrash. The color of her skin goes ashen, gunmetal grey, luminous, pearlescent, and then (with relief) darkens to a distinctly human color, deep brown and smooth to the touch. Her eyes flash gold—one goes white, blooming from the pupil outward, like a cataract or blindness except that she can still see through it. Her hair flexes under her fingers, changes texture, pulls tight to the curve of her scalp.

She runs a hand over the dome of her head; the blind eye side, left side, All Right, quivers and jolts, half her jaw jutting out asymmetrically, the color draining from one side and then the other.

Green eyes thin brows, she looks into the mirror and for a second Carolina looks back, uncomprehending, before

the eyes sink and the hair thins and the teeth bare, sharp, feral, like a dog, like a cancer. The skin droops and sloughs away, like she could reach up and peel it away, and Tex digs fingers into her own face just to watch the thing in the mirror copy her, digs fingers into the hollows where the skin splits. The holes between the mandibles. The texture of clean, bleached bone under her fingers, the gnashing teeth, the horrible smile

She puts the helmet back on.

It all falls apart, eventually. You’ve already seen it. There’s no need to dwell.


End file.
